I watched this video today and it helped me create some categories for the massive sense of dissatisfaction and anxiety over urban American education that I have been developing in the past year. Take a look.
For the 2011-2012 school year, I have been working in a charter school in the city of Buffalo, teaching science to 6th and 7th grade students. After private schools and honors programs skim off the top, many of my students are the brightest middle-schoolers in Buffalo. They are creative, talented, intelligent, hard-working, overwhelmingly immature, and frighteningly moldable. What bothers me is how useless this education is for the vast majority of them. Most are smarter than their peers and could be learning at a pace that far exceeds the average. Yet the State of New York mandates that we spent the first 7 months of a 9+ month school year teaching them from a 'core curriculum' that sets the standard for math and English at a pitifully low place. If 75% of the students could be learning at faster pace on their own and the other 25% need some sort of individualized education program, what is the use of having a classroom? Why have we arbitrarily separated students by 'date of manufacture' when most of them are at different stages of achievement in different subjects? Why are we trying to 'level' them all out to fit a state-mandated curriculum, when each one has unique skills, areas of interests, home environments or cultural heritages that would enable them to excel in certain areas and require that they have extra help in other areas? Why do we assume that an educational system designed to fit a white middle class protestant male is now just as functional when generalized to all socioeconomic classes, all races, all religions, and both genders?
A hearty, "amen!"
ReplyDeleteI agree, the system we currently have is very broken, and the video makes very good points. However, I don't think that we should separate students into different "levels" of learning ability. We should recognize they are not on the same level, and stop trying to get them to test at level with the rest of the kids their age, but we shouldn't school kids together that are all on the same level (how do we really figure that out anyway?).
ReplyDeleteNothing in our culture is level, we're always going to be living, working, growing spiritually along side people that are at different levels - socioeconomic, education, maturity. So rather than separate the high preforming kids from the rest, I think one of the best things we can have kids do is learn how to be a part of a diverse community.
Good point Matt. In fact, that's exactly the point I was bringing up with some of the questions I asked in my post. I think standardization as a concept in education is absurd.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in my opinion, the logical conclusion of what you've stated is to do away with public education entirely. Public education is inherently racist, classist, sexist, and 'intelligent-ist.' The only way to properly educate (read: raise) children, especially when they are a unique and individual part of a greater community, is to custom-fit a plan for education to their specific needs, goals and talents. In my opinion, a teacher cannot do this for 25 children. A team of 3 teachers who know each child individually cannot do this for 25 children. Only a parent or perhaps a full-time tutor specifically hired for this purpose working one-on-one with a pupil (the way the Ancient Greeks were educated) can do this adequately.
I think it leaves people who truly care about 'education' (I am using this word in a vastly different sense than the U.S. Dept of Ed uses it) with only two options: do away with the notion that K-12 school is about academics, or switch to a 100% home education model.
Comments?
home school! i am all for one on one education in a safe environment.
ReplyDelete